MOSCOW (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire in a cathedral on the Russian island of Sakhalin, off the country's eastern coast, on Sunday, killing a nun and a churchgoer and wounding six other people, state-run news agency RIA reported.

There are 31 people confirmed dead in Saturday's attack at a Nairobi shopping mall, the Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre tweeted. "Bodies in the lobby area and ground floor to be removed," the organization added. Several hours after the assault began, Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the bloodshed. There were also 100 people injured, the official said. As darkness fell in Nairobi, authorities said as many as 36 hostages are still being held by the gunmen in the mall... Americans were also injured in the attack, said Deputy State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf. But...

Kenyan police and soldiers have pinned down the remaining gunmen who opened fire at a shopping centre earlier today, killing 30 and leaving at least 50 others injured. A security source at the scene in the capital Nairobi confirmed moments ago the attackers have been isolated. The source said: 'The attackers have been isolated and are pinned down in an area on one of the floors - the rest of the mall seems to be secure.' No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is looking increasingly likely the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab may be responsible. A statement released...

Excerpt of article accompanying 14 photos of attack at source link: Militant gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi on Saturday killing at least 25 people, including children, and sending scores fleeing in panic from shops and restaurants onto the streets, according to witnesses and the Red Cross. Shooting continued hours after the initial assault as troops surrounded the Westgate mall and police and soldiers combed the building, hunting down the attackers shop by shop. A police officer inside the building said the gunmen were barricaded inside the Nakumatt supermarket, one of Kenya's biggest chains. "We got three bodies from...

Gunmen threw grenades and opened fire Saturday killing at least 10 people in an attack targeting non-Muslims at an upscale mall in Kenya's capital that was hosting a children's day event, witnesses said. A local hospital was overwhelmed with the number of wounded being brought in hours after the attack, so they had to divert them to a second facility. Elijah Kamau, who was at the mall at the time of the midday attack, said that the gunmen made a declaration that non-Muslims would be targeted. "The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims...

Syrian government troops battled al-Qaida-linked rebels over a regime-held Christian village in western Syria for the second day Thursday... The rebels launched the assault on the ancient Christian village of Maaloula — which is on a UNESCO list of tentative world heritage sites — on Wednesday after an al-Nusra fighter blew himself up at a regime checkpoint at the entrance to the mountain village. The four-decade iron rule of the Assad family over Syria long has rested on support from the country's ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, Shiite Muslims and Kurds. The Assad family and key regime figures are...

While stressing that Washington’s primary goal remained “limited and proportional” attacks, to degrade Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and deter their future use, the president hinted at a broader long-term mission that may ultimately bring about a change of regime. “It also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region,” he told senior members of Congress at a White House meeting...

By all accounts, the attack was planned with care and executed with precision. At two notorious Iraqi prisons, Abu Ghraib and Taji, al-Qaeda combatants last week used mortars, small arms, suicide bombers, and assault forces to free 400 prisoners, including several who had been on death row. AQ spokesmen hailed those released as “mujahedeen,” holy warriors, who will rejoin the jihad on battlefields throughout the Middle East and beyond. Soon after, we were seeing headlines such as this: “Al Qaeda Is Back.” Where had al-Qaeda gone? Dig deep in the memory hole — all the way to last summer. At...

We Bombed Kaduna &amp; Zaria Yesterday Says Boko Haram. | OSUN DEFENDER [June 18, 2012] Radical islamist militant group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the bombing of three churches that killed at least 50 people in Zaria and Kaduna town yesterday. The sect targeted mostly children and women in the Zaria attacks. The sect spokesperson Abu Qaqa said the current massacre of christians was done to avenge the past killings of Muslims and desecration of Mosques in Zonkwa, Yelwan Shendam, Tafawa Balewa, where they said Mosques were turned into brothels and drinking joints, while Christians continue to carry on...

SNIPPET: "I. When considering the matter of jihadis online, remember that most of what we think we know is based on analyses of the comments made by an handful of vocal activists. The vast majority of jihadis online, be they on forums or social networking sites[i], say nothing. Skillful translations and insightful analyses by definition tell us little about this potentially lethal yet silent majority."

There was something about the way Hillary Clinton said it that touched a nerve. “People are dying,” the Secretary of State said forcefully and finally – with an emphasis on the word “dying” that can only be born of outrage. She was talking about Syria and the brutal repression by embattled President Bashar al-Assad against a popular uprising – an uprising that Clinton and President Obama hope leads to the toppling of the Assad regime. The comment came during a June 13 press conference at the State Department as Clinton stood at a podium next to the Indian foreign minister,...

BALI bomber Umar Patek was seeking a meeting with Osama bin Laden when he was arrested a few kilometres from the al-Qa'ida chief's hideout. The arrest in Abbottabad of Patek, the last major figure who was still at large for the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, has raised a critical question: did Patek give vital information to the mission to kill bin Laden, or did his arrest by Pakistani intelligence risk upsetting the American operation? Patek was arrested on January 25, nine days after stopping in the mountain garrison town on his way to meet...

"We thank Allah for giving us victory. We successfully carried out a suicide bombing on a church at Yelwa in Bauchi state." Jihadists please their bloodthirsty god with murder and gore. "NEWS ALERT: Boko Haram Claims Deadly Church Attack In Nigeria," from BosNewsLife, June 4 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): BAUCHI, NIGERIA (BosNewsLife)-- The militant Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 15 people at an evangelical church in northern Nigeria. In a statement e-mailed to journalists Monday, June 4, group spokesman Abul Qaqa said Boko Haram had “successfully launched” the...

A gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle shot to death an American teacher in the city of Taiz, Yemen, on Sunday, a high-ranking government official there told NBC News. The official said the teacher, an adviser at a Swedish-affiliated institute, died immediately after he was struck by gunfire Sunday morning. Taiz is about 50 miles south of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. Officials from the institute identified the victim as Joel Shrun and said he was born in 1983. However, a U.S. State Department official later told NBC News it had not yet been able to confirm the...

A couple from Texas who moved to a violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found murdered on Tuesday in their ransacked home, relatives said. John and Wanda Casias, originally from Amarillo, Texas, moved to an area outside of Monterrey, Mexico, in the late 1970s or early 1980s to make it their home. Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, said one of her brothers found her father and stepmother dead on Tuesday in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon. John Casias, 76, was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent...

MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says two Americans have been slain outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey, an area plagued by drug violence. It identifies them as John and Wanda Casias. The embassy says the former Amarillo, Texas, couple's family has been notified and it is providing relatives consular services. The embassy hasn't confirmed reports that the killing happened Tuesday. Its statement provides no other details. Valerie Alirez in Greeley, Colo., is John Casias' eldest child. She says he and his wife were found dead Tuesday in Santiago, Nuevo Leon, by one of her brothers.

Another Christmas, another slaughter of Christians by members of the so-called "religion of peace." The Boko Haram, a "radical Muslim sect" as the Associated Press puts it, claimed credit for bombing a Nigerian Catholic church on Christmas, killing 35 and wounding 52. What do the Boko Haram want? A sect spokesman calling himself Abul-Qaqa offered this in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. "There will never be peace until our demands are met," he said. "We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released, we want full implementation of...

Two Muslim extremists in Somalia murdered a member of a secret Christian community in the name of Islam in Lower Shabele region as part of a campaign to rid the country of Christianity, sources said. An area source told Compass two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town after entering his house at 7:30 p.m. “Two al Shabaab members dragged him out of his house, and after 10 minutes they fired several shots on him,” said an area source who requested anonymity. “He then died immediately.” The militants then shouted “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” before...

Three Christian murder victims were brutally tortured for hours before their death, Turkish media reports reveal. The Islamic zealots who attacked a Christian publishing house in the city of Malatya on April 18 prolonged the suffering of their victims by stabbing them repeatedly with dull knives, the media report. A Sabah newspaper story notes that one victim, the German missionary Tilman Geske, suffered 156 knife wounds. An AsiaNews correspondent notes that the Turkish media have provided gruesome details of the crime, but still shy away from mentioning the motivation of the killers, who were apparently influenced by a vitriolic anti-Christian...